By Mohamed Farahat<\/p>\n
The facilitation of birth registration procedures for children born from rape \u2013 particularly of refugee women \u2013 is necessary in order to prevent statelessness<\/em><\/p>\n In Egyptian civil law the birth certificate is the only legal document that proves the existence of a human being, and the validation of other identity documents relies on the birth certificate. The birth certificate is the document that identifies the nationality of the person and his or her parentage.<\/p>\n Registration of children born from rape is one of the hardest matters facing refugee women who are victims of rape either inside the country of asylum or en route to that country. Both in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and in Egyptian law, birth registration is deemed a right of all children, including children born outside marriage; nonetheless, in practice there are many obstacles hindering the implementation of this right. In Egypt the Civil Registry Office has responsibility for recording children born to both citizens and non-citizens. In the case of children born outside marriage, the mother has the right to have her child\u2019s birth registered and to be granted a birth certificate with the mother\u2019s name.<\/p>\n Under the Egyptian Personal Status Law, doctors and midwives must issue a certificate with the name of the mother, date of birth and sex of the child. Despite this and the legal entitlement to a birth certificate, in practice the focus turns to the nature of the relationship that produced the child rather than the child\u2019s rights. One of the main obstacles confronting rape victims is the lack of knowledge among officials with regard to the procedures for issuing this sort of certificate, partly due to the fact that issuance of birth certificates for children born outside marriage is not common in Egyptian society, and social attitudes regarding this matter make the officials unwilling to provide this service. In the case of a child who is the product of rape and is born in Egypt, the registration procedure depends on whether the mother was raped and the father was unknown, whether the father denied his fatherhood or disappeared from the life of the mother, and whether the rape occurred inside or outside Egypt.<\/p>\n